Tag Archives: Matt Andersen

One of Matt Andersen’s favourite albums is Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace’. Recorded with a church choir in 1972, the live LP captures the then 30-year-old singer belting out standards like ‘Climbing Higher Mountains’ as if her life depends on it. “It’s all about the delivery,” he explained to me recently.

The same can be said of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s own performances. Sitting alone on stage, with just an acoustic guitar and a bottled water for company, he strips back his songs to their bare bones. But anything the live renditions lose in instrumentation – none of the drums, brass, and electric guitar flourishes of the studio recordings make it onto the stage – they more than gain in heart and soul.

Matt Andersen’s tour schedule is not for sissies. In the next two weeks the Canadian singer plays 13 shows taking him and his acoustic guitar from London to Stockholm, by way of Hamburg and Amsterdam. And that’s the way he likes it.

“I get more excited about tough schedules than find them daunting,” he reveals. “I like that kind of thing where you’re jetsetting – makes it feel rock ‘n roll, I guess,” he laughs.

“All that tiredness, and all that driving around and flying, that stuff is the worst part of what we do – but we still get to perform. And I think that’s the payoff for a lot of us,” Andersen points out.